Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday ... and maybe other days too.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

What Happened Next? X

Anand - Ivanchuck, London 1994Black to play

Today, following on from WHN? VIII, we return once again to the PCA Speed Chess Grand Prix from the mid 90s.

It's Anand against Ivanchuck in the final of the London leg. Both the main games (25 minutes each) ended in draws so a pair of five minute blitz games were played to break the deadlock. Ivanchuck won the first and only had to avoid losing the second to emerge victorious. With nothing to lose Vishy pressed hard on the kingside but Chucky refused to dig in and launched a huge counter-attack sacrificing first a rook then a bishop to reach the position and the head of today's blog.

16 comments:

Yes, I remember this one, and a quick check on BigBase confirms what happened.

Chuky didn't play Qxh1#, as your granny or Justin's cat would have done. Nor did he play Qg2+ followed by Qxh1#. Nor did he offer a draw. He played the losing move Qf4+, eventually losing on time in a winning position after Vishy blundered away first the win and then the draw.

In positions like this, Black's first priority is to avoid being mated. OK, 1...Qxh1 avoids that in one fashion. But Ivanchuk is a player familiar with the most complex ideas, and he sees mate on h8 and f7. So how to avoid that, and still keep the draw? Easy! Go for the perpetual! Like this: 1...Qg2+; 2. Ke8 Qf2+!! (defending f7) 3. Kd8 and now....ohhh...f***

Mm! A report is a bit beyond me I'm afraid. I was third seed but finished with 5.5/8 ---- there wasn't enough time for the last two rounds of the scheduled ten. However nobody minded and there was an outright winner Philip (?) Tozer (?) whose brother is an IM, but who himself is a 160ish and who has recently returned to chess after a long break. He conceded only one draw, to second seed Chris Briscoe ---- whom I then beat. I played Tozer in the last round a whole point behind, but went down very quickly in the early middlegame unfortunately. Tozer seemed genuinely dumbfounded by his success. I can't remember who first seed was but I think he lost a few early on and never recovered, although I may be wrong about that.

Four S&B players competed: myself, Robin Haldane, James McDonnell and fellow-blogger Morgan Daniels who won a share of a grading prize that he'll almost certainly never remember to cash in. (We left before prize-giving to get to the pub.)

Other details: there were no disputes that I was aware of, surprising given the time-limit, and the event was good-natured and well-run ---- although if they repeat the event I imagine they will try to find a way to speed up the pairings.